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An excellent biography, very well researched and insightful that gives the reader enough information to make her own judgements about its subject. It does a good job of treating its subject in an evenhanded manner, making him come alive, and giving the reader sympathy for him despite his embodying so many of the worst characteristics of self-centered, chauvinistic Jewish men of his generation.Those of us who write novels and whose idea of a "modest advance" is not the $750,000 that Heller receiv...
I started skimming this for 30 minutes, just as I was leaving a library in Croatia. Other reviews tell me there's a good deal of (warranted?) character assasination in the book, but hovering around the beginning of the book, I somehow snatched the meat. Heller was an advertising exec who'd grown up visiting the Jewish vaudeville centers in the Poconos. That helped explain his amazing ear for words and his ability to make the ridiculous sublime. But truth be told, it appears to have been his edi
Pretty fascinating biography. That makes two in a row, with Ted Williams first, now Joe Heller. Lots of parallels between them; success early in their respective careers, and then never able to replicate or top it. Both had estranged children and were serial womanizers. I now feel compelled to read Catch-22. I recall reading it when I was a teen, so here we are 40 years later and I will re-read it, with some new knowledge of the author.
Once I began reading this biography, I realized that I had read it before, or much of it--excerpted in a magazine some years ago. It made a strong impression on me then--how revelatory it was of Heller's personality in the heyday of his fame in the 60s and beyond after writing 'Catch-22', and how fascinating and horrifying the story of his 1980s illness (Guillain Barre Syndrome) was, with its strange happy-ish ending of mostly-recovered health and weird final marriage to his nurse.Now reading th...
Joseph Heller will forever be known as the Author of Catch-22 and not for Closing Time (sequel to Catch 22), Good as Gold, Something Happened, God Knows, No Laughing Matter (in collaboration with his long-time acquaintance) etc. The uproariously funny, flippant and Kafkaesque Catch 22 transcends countries, wars and reality in order to talk about the sloth, inefficiency, venality in bureaucracies around the world. On a deeper level it is about man’s strong survival instinct – “He was going to liv...
Well written bio that will lead to more books. Great look at Heller and his place in time.
Rather than write a brief blurb here, I'll post a link to my review of the book on an external website, if anyone is interested:http://logosjournal.com/2012/spring-s...
racy Daugherty has written a scholarly and thoughtful biography of an author unfairly thought of as a one-hit wonder. Unlike many modern biographies he has not done more than hint at the darker psychology of Mr. Heller nor has he written a tell-all listing Heller's indiscretions and detailing his failures.Mr. Daugherty makes the case for Joseph Heller as an important writer and does so by detailing his role in a remarkably literate generation of American writers. He argues that Joe Heller was ah...
A well researched and interesting biography. Daugherty gives readers a close up look at Heller's life, covering both his genius and his flaws. I'd envisioned Heller based only on Catch-22, not thinking of his life as an older man. I did not realize he had written a number of other books that explore completely different topics and other life stages.
I don't think I've ever learned more about a writer's work from reading a biography as I have fromTracy Daugherty's "Just One Catch," the first lengthy account of Joseph Heller's life (other than his own guarded memoir) we have. As I write this, another book about Heller by his daughter Erica is about to be published, and that inside look at growing up in the Heller family is likely to supplement this more academic study. But Daugherty is especially good at relating events of Heller's life to th...
A good biography of Heller. He was a complicated person, whose best work was probably Catch-22.
Very good overview of Heller's life and work with a minimum of psychological mumbo-jumbo and most of the emphasis on the work and critical response to it...decent,unpretentious Basic Biography...and it is sending me back to re-read the post-"Catch-22" novels which I may have undervalued on first reading...
A lot of "and then" kind of narration, with no central thesis that gives the reason behind writing this biography. Some lacklustre writing. But lots of quotes and research, and interviews. If someone is looking for information on Heller, Daugherty provides it.
A very enjoyable biography. Having just finished Catch 22 I wanted to know more about Heller. The book is intelligent, witty, detailed and exciting. It also never shies away from revealing Heller's warts. Heck other authors could learn a thing or to from this biography as it gets the most out of the material it is presented with.
Heller's masterpiece is one of the armful of the best books I ever read. When I read "Catch-22" when I read it in high in the mid-sixties, I had no way of knowing it would prepare me for Vietnam. I will always remember of the young woman who slipped the blue covered paperback fondly.This "literary biography" gave me some insight of the life experience that molded the genius that wrote a book that shaped me so much.
